Toronto is North America's fourth-largest city—bigger than Chicago—yet it is a lightweight on the sports scene. Forget the whining of title-starved cities like Cleveland: None of Toronto's three major pro teams—the NHL's Maple Leafs, the NBA's Raptors and baseball's Blue Jays—has even made the playoffs since 2008. (When the Raptors heroically battled the Orlando Magic to a five-game first-round defeat.)

But now, finally, this town is throwing its weight around again. Or trying to, anyway.

On Thursday, the Maple Leafs can end the playoff drought with a win over the New York Islanders and a regulation loss by the Winnipeg Jets. The Leafs—Canada's Yankees in popularity, though not performance—haven't made the postseason themselves since 2004; whenever they clinch their spot, it will surely spark a celebration across the nation's largest city.

And the Blue Jays are in the conversation again, albeit not for their play. Having failed to make the playoffs since 1993, the Jays went on an off-season spending spree that was the talk of baseball. Entering Wednesday, it had resulted in a 6-8 record, a devastating injury to star shortstop Jose Reyes and growing fan discontent.

But for a fan base that still holds dear the Jays' back-to-back World Series titles in 1992 and 1993, and for the handful who can still recall the Leafs' last Stanley Cup in 1967, it is about time Toronto became relevant again.

ENLARGE

Injured Blue Jays shortstop Jose Reyes.
Associated Press

"With every year that goes by…I'm forgetting how it feels to see a playoff game in Toronto," said Kevin Kennedy, co-owner of Tall Boys, a popular local bar which shows Jays games complete with ballpark food and beer vendors.

Granted, Toronto wins at some things. The Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts won this year's Grey Cup. The Toronto Rock have been one of the best teams in the National Lacrosse League, winning six titles since 1999.

But Toronto's major sports teams draw the bulk of the fans. (The Raptors, incidentally, will miss the playoffs for the fifth straight year.) Although the Leafs remain supreme interest-wise, the city was captivated by the Jays' off-season bonanza, which included adding Reyes and pitchers R.A. Dickey, Mark Buehrle and Josh Johnson.

"There's such an interest level in this team here, in this sport," Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos said. "And we can obviously help continue that by winning."

Bars that catered solely to baseball fans slowly emerged, something that was practically unheard of in this hockey-crazed town. The team's new logo—a redesign of the old Blue Jays bird—caught on with Toronto's fashion-conscious youth in the city's trendy Ossington area. The team's ball cap even got some street credibility after being worn by the Canadian rapper Drake in one of his music videos late last year.

Paul Beeston, president of the Blue Jays, knew something was going on when he started talking baseball with his longtime barber for the first time.

"Here's this guy who has me at his mercy with a pair of scissors and he's asking me about baseball," Beeston said.

But then the season started. Dickey, who won last year's National League Cy Young Award, struggled in his first two starts. So did Johnson and Buehrle. On Friday, Reyes mistimed a slide into second base, injuring his ankle and landing on the disabled list for the next three months.

"I've been through the ups and downs now for so many times that I don't react anymore," Anthopolous said. "The Reyes injury is tough and in the past, I would have hung my head and had sleepless nights, but now, the train keeps going. If we're supposed to be a good team, one injury should not derail us."

By contrast, it's a lack of star power that has made the Leafs' recent success that much more surprising.

There isn't a superstar on the team, which entered Wednesday in fifth in the Eastern Conference, nearly assured of a playoff spot. It is a markedly different strategy after years of overpaying for high-profile players like Mats Sundin and Ed Belfour and getting little return in terms of team success.

"It's a collection of a lot of different things that creates success, and you have a lot of players that believe in it," said Tom Anselmi, president of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd., which owns the Raptors, Maple Leafs and the Toronto FC Major League Soccer club.

But as Toronto nears its first major-league postseason in years, there remains skepticism among the tortured fan base.

"I'm still wary of the Leafs' playoff chances," said Steve Glinert, a longtime Toronto sports fan who works in the city's financial district. "You always want to be optimistic, but there's a lot of pessimists out there. After so many years of missing the playoffs each year, its easy to understand why."

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